Act Now for a Peaceful World: 21st September, International Day of Peace

Capturing the ground reality of war violence in Gaza, Channel 4 has produced and screened “Kill Zone: Inside Gaza Dispatches” (2024). It tells the story of children, journalists, and doctors who are subjected to Israeli military violence. In 2011, the same Channel 4 produced a documentary on the Sri Lankan civil war, showing the everyday violence of the Sri Lankan government against the Tamil minority.

The panel of the Independent International Commission of Inquiry on the Occupied Palestinian Territory, established by the United Nations (UN) Human Rights Council in 2021, is chaired by Navanethem Pillay, with panellists Chris Sidoti, an Australian human rights lawyer, and Miloon Kothari, an Indian expert on housing and land rights. Their 2024 report claimed that “Israeli security forces have committed and are continuing to commit four of the five acts of genocide…” The same Navanethem Pillay and the UN body had also pressed for an investigation into alleged crimes in the Sri Lankan war in 2014.

Every time I watch the news or a documentary on Gaza, my mind goes back to Mullivaikkal, Tamil civilians crying and praying for the Sri Lankan military approach to pause a decade ago. Despite differences in geographical locations, democratic systems, historical backgrounds, and political structures, a disturbingly similar pattern emerges: killings, disappearances, and crimes, with reports and findings often confined to documentaries, a few discussions, or academic writings. The systematic war violence and oppression of civilians have either been neglected or addressed so slowly that accountability remains distant.

This reflection moved me to write this blog while commemorating the International Day of Peace on 21 September, focusing on peace education — who gets what, when, and how from it. The blog also highlights the academic role in advancing this year’s peace theme, “Act Now for a Peaceful World.” This essay is divided into four sections: first, the history of the International Day of Peace; second, understanding the reality of peace; third, the role of contemporary academia in restoring peace; and fourth, the conclusion.

The Thirty-Sixth Session of the UN General Assembly, Resolution 36/67, reaffirmed the UN’s obligation to promote peace at both national and international levels. It declares, “…since wars begin in the minds of men, it is in the minds of men that the defences of peace must be constructed… peace must therefore be founded, if it is not to fail, upon the intellectual and moral solidarity of mankind.”

The UN’s focus on peace education evolved over time. In 1972, the United Nations University was established, followed by the University for Peace in the 1980s to promote peace education in all aspects. In 2001, the UN General Assembly passed Resolution 55/282, permanently recognizing 21 September as the International Day of Peace, to encourage ending violence and promoting ceasefires.

This history shows how peace became a mainstream part of education. The next step is to understand the reality of peace.

Understanding, implementing, and sustaining peace at the ground level requires examining who gets what, when, and how, and dismantling power dynamics and hierarchical structures. Ending structural, procedural, and symbolic violence is essential, as violence produces fear, subjugation, instability, and a lack of accountability. These directly challenge peace, which stands for liberation, stability, and recognition.

Civilian narratives offer powerful insight into this reality. In Khas Kunar, Eastern Afghanistan, to Kabul and Kandahar, women live under constant fear under the Taliban’s fundamentalist military rule. Yet, they risk their lives by secretly sending WhatsApp messages to share their peace consciousness and desire to normalise their lives. In Russia, women risk persecution by protesting publicly against the Ukraine war, organising collective action and expressing their political consciousness for peace. In Sri Lanka, Tamil women sit and sleep in temporary huts holding banners for their disappeared loved ones while simultaneously managing households and community work, striving to rebuild stability after war. In Manipur, India, women staged a naked protest in front of a military camp to stop physical and sexual violence by the armed forces.

These examples reveal that peace is created by the oppressed (who), for freedom, equality, and basic normalcy of life (what), through prolonged, constant, everyday struggle (when), by building collective consciousness (how). Peace is not merely a policy at the international level but a continuous process of sustaining stability and normalcy by ending oppression at the ground level.

This raises an important question: How do we teach peace in classrooms?

Currently, we teach theories such as Immanuel Kant’s Perpetual Peace and Johan Galtung’s concepts of positive and negative peace. While, these theories focus on the agency of power in defining peace and are disconnected from the everyday realities of oppressed communities. This results in a gendered, class-based, intellectualized view of peace, rather than one rooted in lived experience.

Dr. Aruni Samarakoon holds a PhD in Political Science from the University of Hull, and is a PSA ECN committee member and an Associate Fellow of PSA Diverse Voices.

Please note the views expressed in this blog are those of the author and not necessarily those of the PSA.

Image Source: UN